Large-scale software development efforts require proper coordination and management of teams of software engineers and test engineers. When a software development effort involves a large group of engineers simultaneously working on multiple versions and releases of a large number of different source modules of the software product, confusion and inefficiency easily results if the development process and subsequent product release are not properly managed.
For example, some engineers may be coding source modules for version 3.1 of a software product X, while some engineers may be incorporating newer features into source modules for version 4.0, and still some engineers may be providing a fix to some problems reported in source modules of version 2.1. Note that it is possible to have overlap between the three groups of engineers, so that an engineer may be involved in all three efforts.
Compounding the problem is the fact that each version of a software product must pass through multiple developmental stages prior to its release, where advancing to the next stage requires the passing of some predetermined testing and approval process. To be tested, all the source modules for that version of the software product must be collected and built into a load. The process of load building is also called compiling and linking of all the source modules. The resultant load or build is the software product to be tested or to be delivered to the customers when all the developmental stages have been passed.
Previously, the process of computing, collecting, and keeping track of certain metrics or statistics related to the software development and testing process was done manually and in a haphazard manner. The metrics are desirable for measuring various aspects of the code development and testing process, and may be collected from a variety of sources. For example, from the source code, the number of lines of code, the number of lines of lines of code changed in a work session; and from test devices, the number of lines tested. The metrics are obtained and analyzed to ensure integrity in the code development and testing process, and to provide information for auditing purposes.
It may be seen that because the software development involves the iterative performance of code writing, code inspection, load building, and testing, considerable savings in time, energy, and funds are possible if the metric collecting and reporting process is automated and better integrated with the software release process.